New "Navigate" pane, and other exciting enhancements - SI BETA 4.5.3

(as always, click heading or 'read more' link for the full post, this is just a summary.) If you use SpecsIntact very much and are interested in trying a very cool new release before it get pushed out in 2015, this one is really worth taking a look at. SEE ALL NOTES BEFORE USING, AND EMAIL SUPPORT TO SIGN UP FOR INTERIM UPDATES.

My favorite new feature is the "Navigate" pane.

Notes from the developers:

SI Tip of the Day: Easy way to undelete

If you want to undelete something, often the easiest way is to just delete the tag.

You have to have tags turned on. You have to have Revisions tracking turned off.


Then you can delete any beginning or ending DEL tag with the backspace or the delete key, to undelete the struck text.

SI Tip of the Day: Shift+Delete Keystroke to Delete Blocks of Text

TIP: A little-known keystroke Shift+Delete can be used when your cursor is at beginning of an XML tag such as SPT, TXT, LST, ITM, to instantly and correctly delete everything enclosed by the start tag and its associated end tag.

Screenshots - Before:

After:

Still a good idea to use Alt, T, V to check validity. 

AND BE AWARE that any nested subparts will also be deleted if you delete a parent SPT tag and all that is within it using Shift+Delete.

(This information is found in the built-in help system, under SpecsIntact Editor > Using the SI Editor > Tips & Techniques. Along with a lot of other good tips & techniques ;)

SI Tip of the Day - Global search [& replace]

To do a global text search of a SpecsIntact project (with optional replace feature), right-click a project in the tree, and click Search/Replace Job... This is especially useful if, for example, you are halfway through editing for a project, and then you receive directions from on high that the abbreviations of reviewing agencies must be changed. (In case you are wondering based on previous entry, no this is not being slammed for inventing new abbreviations for LEED. Different project. Changing AE to D per a new project requirement).

REDLINING REPLACEMENT TEXT

A nice little feature in the "Enter Search Text" dialog box is the "[x] Mark revisions" checkbox. This is good for making sure the revisions make sense in context. Once I wrote a spec for vinyl windows based on an aluminum windows spec. Short version is, I noticed it called for vinyl fasteners! So it is good to check behind our automated friend the computer.

IS THERE A WAY TO SKIP TEXT IN EDITOR'S NOTES? - YES!

Here's one more little tip - if you are searching for something like "AE" that is contained in the editor's notes in nearly all SpecsIntact sections, the results window yields less than desirable functionality - because now you have to open nearly every section and use Ctrl+F to find in many cases something that isn't even in the actual section text. SOLUTION: Make a single-file PDF using the Print/Publish dialog box. Be sure to go to the Options tab and uncheck "[_] Notes" and maybe also "[_] Revisions". Then in Adobe Acrobat (I use Pro), use Ctrl+Shift+F to find all, then type in AE, [x] whole word only - it will help you find them much more quickly.